Altered Fates
by eternalsailorsolarwind
Summary: Satoshi ponders over something Daisuke said years ago, and how it changed both of their fates. Slight spoilers for the end of the anime. Slight shonen ai content. SatoshiDaisuke


Altered Fates

By: eternalsailorsolarwind

Disclaimer: _D.N. Angel_ is owned by Sugisaki Yukiru, Tokyopop, and several other legal entities whose names escape me at the moment. I own nothing but some manga and anime. ;

A/N: My creativity has been like a dry well lately, but this bit me and wouldn't let me go when I was reading volume 9 of _D.N. Angel_. The first line of this fic is a direct quote from that volume, on page 115, where Daiuske is talking to Satoshi. This is a bit of my interpretation on what the future might be after the end of the series, especially in light of the first sentence of this fic. Not having read the end of the manga, but having seen the anime, it's a little bit of a mix of both, with some imagination thrown in. Some slight spoilers for the end of the anime. This is in Satoshi's POV, with a few warnings for light shonen ai content.

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_"No matter what, we won't be destroyed."_

Rolling onto his back, Hikari Satoshi pondered those words for what must be the millionth time in his life. He'd been surprised to hear them from the one person that he had felt close to during his youth – it couldn't really be called a childhood – and the one person he'd had no right to hear them from.

Niwa Daisuke had been his rival, his nemesis, and his best and only friend. At the time, Satoshi had been trying to catch him to prove to the world that Daisuke was, in fact, the Phantom Thief Dark. Not only for his "father," but to finally end the curse of the Hikari family for once and for all. However, it was not that simple.

Most things weren't, once they met with Daisuke. The high-spirited boy had the effect of making things go awry – always in a slightly clueless, oblivious way. Satoshi had been morbidly amazed by how easily Daisuke affected his plans without half trying. It had been incredibly annoying, especially given his analytical mind.

But it was also oddly endearing. Soon after first meeting the host for Dark, Satoshi found that he no longer had to pretend that he liked the other boy – because he did, even against his own will.

The fact that Daisuke considered Satoshi a friend, even after all of the attempts to capture both he and Dark, touched the blonde boy in his deeply buried heart. Touched him enough, in fact, to hasten Krad's first appearance. Deeply alarmed, Satoshi had done all he could to protect his friend from his other half. But again, even that went wrong.

Krad was also drawn in by that indescribable quality that drew Satoshi to the red-headed boy. Satoshi had been more worried by the fact that Krad seemed more…_enamored_ of Daisuke than was truly healthy. But it was overly possessive; Krad wanted to _own_ Daisuke. Nothing more.

That had been the final straw for Satoshi – knowing that Krad shared some of the same wishes that he himself did, with none of the self-restraint. He'd been able to push his other half away again for a time, out of fear for the other boy. It also caused him to enter into a loose alliance of sorts with Daisuke and Dark, one that ultimately allowed for Dark and Krad to be merged back into Black Wing, and then for the artwork to destroy itself.

He'd felt the pang when Krad was finally gone, but it was nothing like what Daisuke felt. Daisuke and Dark had been friends, and their relationship had been much more cordial than the one he had shared with Krad. The loss of Dark had caused Daisuke to spiral into a mild depression, whereas he could only really feel relief.

But as only Satoshi could even begin to understand what he was going through, Daisuke had turned to him in his grief. It was easy to do, especially since Satoshi had been adopted by the Niwa after his first adoptive father had died. In time, Daisuke recovered from Dark's loss, and Satoshi realized that those words that the red-haired boy had once spoken to him were completely true. Their relationship was never destroyed; Satoshi had found the one thing that he could believe would always be there for him.

Rolling onto his side, Satoshi smiled slightly at the sleeping form of his lover, sprawled across his side of the bed. A large bed was the one thing he had put his foot down on; Daisuke was a restless sleeper, and Satoshi was prone to insomnia. Any less space and they would probably come to blows in the middle of the night.

"Nnnmmm," muttered Daisuke, breaking Satoshi out of his musings. Red eyes fluttered open to look sleepily at him. "Insomnia again?"

"I was just thinking," admitted Satoshi, "about the old days."

A fleeting look crossed Daisuke's face, but was gone instantly. His voice was carefully neutral, "Oh?"

Nodding in the darkness, Satoshi hurried on. Reminding Daisuke of Dark was never a good thing. "About how you obliviously changed our fates, without even really trying."

"I did not!"

Lips quirking, Satoshi continued on over the protest. "You did. Just by acknowledging that what we were supposed to do wasn't right for us. By looking for another way, like your father did. If you hadn't, we wouldn't be here right now."

He left unsaid that he would probably be dead, having killed himself rather than succumb to Krad, and that Daisuke would probably be married to Riku right now, trying to have a family so the Phantom Thief would continue.

"But we _are_ here right now, Satoshi. And I can think of lots of other things I'd rather be doing than thinking about might-have-beens," said Daisuke, his eyes taking on a particular glint that Satoshi recognized well.

"It's pointless to argue with you when you get like that," replied Satoshi with an answering smile, moving towards his lover. "And it's my turn to be on top."


End file.
